RuPaul's Drag Race Spoilers

12/08/2013

I'm going to assemble an in-depth first look at the Season Six cast for you, with links and factoids and tidbits to help you choose your early favorites, but for now, let's look at the entire cast of RuPaul's Drag Race Season Six, presented alphabetically. All my love to the RuPaul's Drag Race subreddit, who helped ID some of the queens whose identities hadn't leaked. Here are your 2014 Racing Queens:

06/17/2013

Note: this post has been modified with additional information as of 6/20. Changes are in italics.

Season Six is filming right now. It's thrilling to think: at this moment, while I type, while you read, the girls of Season Six might be actually filming the Snatch Game right now. Or two of them might be lip-synching for their lives tonight. Some petty squabble that will lead to this season's Bitch-I-am-from-CHICAGO-this-is-not-RuPaul's-Best-Friend-Race-I-have-had-it-OFFICIALLY catchphrase? Could be happening at this moment.

I've been combing the internet for weeks, making a spreadsheet of every single rumored queen mentioned by anybody, anywhere. By the time I decided it was time to write this post, I'd assembled a list of over sixty queens who were confirmed as having applied, and that's not counting any Atlanta queens. Then, one by one, I went down my list and researched them all. Most were easy to cross off the list: when you're posting Vines from gigs and Instagrams from your Gemini birthday party, you're not simultaneously filming RuPaul's Drag Race. Some were harder, particularly queens who were never very active on social media to begin with. And some? A few, I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing splashed across promos this fall, and in the werkroom come January.

Special shout-out, of course, to the RuPaul's Drag Racesubreddit, which continues to be my favorite place to geek all the way out about Drag Race--a solid half of my rumored-list came from there, and while I've now independently researched each queen I'm about to tell you about, many of them wouldn't be on my radar if it weren't for the efforts of the RPDR subreddit. Thanks, friends!

So, while the Season Six queens frantically groom their wigs, beat their mugs, and E-6000 their runway apparel, their local bars have quietly brought in special guest queens to fill in, their social media has turned silent or strange. Some of them might be busy or bluffing, but a few of them are probably not. Who are these missing queens? Let's look at the list.

Adore Delano

Hometown: Los Angeles, CAFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: Very, Very LikelyTo keep it short: Adore, aka Danny Noriega, lives on social media--she's that former American Idol contestant who nearly won last year's Facebook fan vote, and did win this year's. While she's normally actively online on a daily basis, she went completely silent on June 6. If there's anybody on this list that I feel certain made Season Six, it's Adore.

Bianca Del Rio

Hometown: New York, NYFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: LikelyThis one comes from an anonymous tip on Reddit, purportedly from somebody in the NYC drag scene, but it seems like a solid guess: she's Drag Race material, and while it appears that she's normally busy on social media, she's gone nearly silent--a Facebook change of profile pic and update from her movie project could absolutely have been made by somebody else.

Courtney Act

Hometown: West Hollywood, CA, by way of Sydney, AustraliaFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: Very LikelyThis is the queen that the internet is 100% convinced has been cast: after all, she oh-so-conveniently disappeared for a "trip to Africa" and hasn't surfaced since June 8, and she's only posted a single photo, which the internet immediately clocked: check out the side-by-side of her winter trip on Instagram and her "recent" Facebook photo.

On the other hand: I've also heard rumors that this is a double-bluff, that wherever she is, Courtney is not on RuPaul's Drag Race this season. I imagine we'll find out more details next time she finds access to the internet.

Darienne Lake

Hometown: Rochester, NYFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: Very LikelyThis is one where my obsessive spreadsheeting has hopefully paid off: though I haven't seen buzz about Darienne Lake since the Facebook fan vote, I put her on my list a few weeks ago, and now she appears to be missing. Her home bar, Rain Lounge, hosted Willam for Rochester Pride this weekend, and while she was originally billed as part of the show, it appears that she wasn't there after all. Yes, it's possible that her daytime life is putting her through it and she's disappeared from the scene for personal reasons, but my hunch is that she's in LA right now.

Gia Gunn

Hometown: Chicago, ILFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: LikelyLike Bianca Del Rio, this is via anonymous-rumor-mill chatter, this time from the Chicago queens. She dropped off social media the third week of May, but she was never very active on social media to begin with, so it's a tough call. For now, we're taking a ride with the Chicago kiki, and we'll see when she surfaces next.

Trinity Bonet

Hometown: Atlanta, GAFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: Very LikelyDid RuPaul grant my wish for an Atlanta queen? The third anonymous-rumor-mill cast-speculative is Trinity Bonet, who has been silent on social media since June 5. (Full disclosure, since she's an Atlanta queen: I don't know Trinity personally, and I haven't spoken directly with of her friends, though I have seen her perform a couple of times in the last several months.) This one, I'm hoping to pin down a bit more firmly: she's on-cast at Stars of the Century, a weekly Monday-night drag show, and I'm going tonight. If she's there, I'll wipe the egg from my face and cross her off this list, but I strongly doubt I'll be seeing her tonight.

Update 6/20: I went to the show, and it was great fun! However, as it happens, this Monday's show was a special annual event, and the cast was different from the regular performers. I'll keep my ear to the ground.

Ben Delacreme

Hometown: Seattle, WAFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: Possible Very, very likelyThis one feels like wishful thinking: they wouldn't really cast Jinkx's hilarious co-host and drag-queen-BFF Ben Delacreme the season after Jinkx won, right? After the Sharon-then-Alaska casting, though, all bets are off, and Jinkx was vocal in April and May about wanting to see Ben on RuPaul's Drag Race next season. If she's there, I'm already certain she'll be one of my favorites; Ben would be a joy to have on the show. She's been silent since June 6, but Seattle Pride is coming up June 28-29, and she's billed for multiple events that weekend. If nobody else has resurfaced by then, and she misses Seattle Pride too, I'd say we have a cast pick.

Update 6/20: Ben has been canceling Pride events. Alert Redditor Suzepie pointed me towards this June 22 event, where Ben was supposed to host, but has been replaced (yes, this is the punctuation) "due to an unexpected 'commitment'..." The write-up is by Michael Strangeways, who has appeared in the Monsoon Season video series and is presumably in the inner loop of the Seattle drag scene. 'Commitment' indeed. Can't wait to see you on Season Six, Ben!

Laganja Estranga

Hometown: Los Angeles, CAFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: PossibleVery LikelySo, let's be real: somebody else is enthusiastically running Laganja's Twitter account, right? It's recently switched from the first person to the third person, and her Facebook has been silent since June 11. With no upcoming gigs and plenty of internet buzz, she might just be smokin' the werkroom as we speak.

Hometown: New York City, NYFacebookTwitterLikelihood for Season Six: PossibleVery UnlikelyI've seen quite a lot of buzz about Miss Fame, and her social media has gone very spotty recently. If her Facebook is anything to go by, she's either gone quiet because she's filming RuPaul's Drag Race, or because she just got engaged. Congratulations either way!

Update 6/20: I've had a couple people familiar with her boy name/accounts tell me that she's not on Season Six. Alas!

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That's my list--so far. I've got a few other names I'm sitting on, because I'm still not sure what to make of them--mostly, queens who have definitely disappeared from social media since the first week of June, but who were also never very active on social media to begin with. There might be a Part Two to this post.

And, while we're at it, who's not filming? It seems safe to bet that, among hundreds of other queens, the Season Six cast will not include buzzed-about queens such as Rhea Litre, Mayhem Miller, Vicky Vox, Mahlae Balenciaga, Misty Eyez, Epiphany Get Paid (unless she's in the same version of Greece as Courtney's version of the Seychelles), or anybody from the Haus of Haunt. Take heart: there's always Season Seven.

If you have T, send it to me. If you want to be anonymous, you can email me at dilettwat@gmail.com, or else feel free to hit me up on Facebook or Twitter. Sorry for the gap in posting lately--I've got a few posts/projects cooking, but you've gotta let it cook, y'know? Anyway, sound off in the comments--if my list is correct, who will you be most-excited to see on RuPaul's Drag Race next season?

04/25/2013

It's the end of werkroom days. No more wacky mini-challenges, no more racing to the supplies table or jostling at the make-up mirror, no more hoping to not lip synch. It's the music video. It's the victory lap. It's the Final Three.

As we bid adieu to Detox's waggling Black & Decker Pecker Wrecker, the queens do the math. What a difference a single challenge makes: Jinkx's record-breaking eight-week run of highs and wins has ended in her first Lip Synch For Your Life. Meanwhile, Alaska's timely victory has secured a three-way tie for challenge wins, and Alaska is the only finalist who hasn't lip synched. The momentum is potentially meaningful: except for Manila, every queen who's won the Top Four Ball Challenge went on to win her season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Pictured: by some measures, your eleventh-hour frontrunner.

Roll credits! Top Three Fantasy, Top Three Fantasy! Our finalists dance into the werkroom, and Ro and Laska have notes from Tox.

Not that Detox owed Jinkx a note, but it still feels like a snub: no note for Jinkxy.

nb: Detox has been diligent about answering tweets over the last couple weeks, but when I asked her if some shady producer had stolen/hidden her note to Jinkx, she didn't reply, and I couldn't find any fuss about it elsewhere on her Twitter timeline either. I'd been wondering if the missing note was part of the Jinkx-the-Protagonist edit, but it's probably safe to say that Detox genuinely didn't leave anything for Jinkx.

Oooh, girl. It's your very last SheMail, and it comes with Michelle Visage!

The video this year will be "The Beginning," and before the final runway, the queens will meet with Gloria Allred and have their time-honored Tic Tac lunch with RuPaul herself. Don't fuck it up!

Michelle trades out with choreographer Candis Cayne, who introduces us to #Chiffonography. (I maintain that #Chiffonography is correctly spelled with the hashtag.)

In the most predictable failing since Coco started slapping Tang on Horchata, Alaska still can't dance. Say, isn't Abby Lee Miller a fan of the show, and isn't her studio in Pittsburgh? It might be time for a weekend werkshop with the Haus of Haunt.

Thankfully, we move on to #Candisography's next segment. Roxxxy knows how to werk a wind machine, but Alaska and Jinkx struggle, and the post-production editors treat us to a hilarious woodchipper sound effect as Jinkx whips her wig into the fan.

There's no time to fish Jinkx's hair out of the fan, because we're moving on to the music video shoot! It feels like an homage to To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar initially, until Mathu Andersen tells the girls that they're "going to fly to heaven." They even see RuPaul in the clouds!

Hermione, Harry, and Ron chase the train to Hogwarts fabulously.

(There wasn't a flying car in To Wong Foo, was there? Last time I saw that movie, it was college and I was drunk.)

We're treated to highlights of Roxxxy and Jinkx's wigs tangling, and Jinkx having an adorable narcoleptic-at-the-wheel moment.

Does Absolut make a helium-and-speed cocktail? Because the next portion of the video shoot is, as Mathu Andersen put it, chipmunkery.

#Karaokraphy

We watch Roxxxy nail it--she definitely chose the best hair for this out of the three of them--and Alaska ultimately succeeds as well. We're not shown any of Jinkx's chipmunkery at all, which leads me to believe that her performance was on-point too--if she'd struggled, they would have shown it.

Finally, it's time to film the dreaded dancing, and although we see a few moments of Alaska making mistakes, I'm convinced she pulled it together quickly and the #Chiffonography worked itself out for all three queens. Why? Because we skipped one of my favorite schadenfreude moments of every season: Mathu Andersen freaking out with exasperation during the video shoot.

Humor my unkindness for a moment, but some people are really funny when they're pissed off, and Mathu Andersen is one of them. Remember this episode from seasons 3 and 4: he can be a mean old queen with zero tolerance for fuckery on these video
shoots, and anybody who screws up can go straight to gay hell, so far as
he's concerned. If Mathu Andersen and Mike Ruiz are bookend challenges
to the entire season, then Mike Ruiz is the tutorial level and Mathu
Andersen is the final boss battle. This year, though, all three queens avoid Mathu's wrath, so I look forward to seeing Alaska's perfect #Chiffonography when they release the final video.

How amazing is Gloria Allred, hunties, and how amazing was she with the queens? All of the amazing, that's how amazing. I loved Alaska, in her confessional, introducing her with a tone of reverence typically reserved for people who came out of Cher's vagina. Ladies, take note of Gloria Allred: this is executive realness.

There better not be any bullshit.

She has no patience for wishy-washy answers and "pageant babble," as she eloguently puts it. "As the kids would say, keep it real. Do you think you can do that?" Gloria Allred keeps it real, chiding Alaska and Roxxxy for imprecise answers and Jinkx for avoiding reading the other queens. I want her to be my terrifying, impossible-to-please mentor. Actually, I want to make a thousand clones of her and make everybody answer to her every once in a while. It would be a bit like getting sent to the principal's office, but we'd all be better for it, right?

Meanwhile, the Tic Tac Luncheons are underway with RuPaul. I always love seeing the queens gag on being that close to Ru when she's in full drag: even after weeks of being up-close-and-personal with boy-RuPaul, and in the same room as her during judging, there's still a wonderfully jazzed energy that each queen brings to her lunch date. RuPaul has an amazing way of setting people at-ease, though, and all three lunches are great for the queens.

We watch Jinkx's first, and Jinkx presents herself swimmingly well, discussing her Broadway aspirations (RuPaul suggests the character of Blanche DuBois) and rocky childhood. Jinkx reflects that perhaps she plays an older character because she missed out on the typical childhood/teenager experience; her drag character is a mother because she'd been in a parental role to her brothers for years. On a sidenote: at Tuesday's Elimination Lunch (which I recapped here), Jinkx gave an update on her family situation: she and her mother "have had a lot of intense conversations" since the show began airing, but that it's brought her family back together--her mother and aunt are speaking again, her youngest brother is doing better, etc. RuPaul's Drag Race: helping families heal since 2009.

Alaska's is next, and she talks about her potential to be "the Kate Middleton of drag," as well as her fear of death. We're treated to a sweet montage of Alaska/Sharon photos while Alaska cries a little, and RuPaul advocates living in the moment. She tells Alaska how proud she is of her, and calls her "sweetheart," and my heart is full. <3

Roxxxy's tee-shirt breaks the fourth wall.

During her lunch, Roxxxy pitches for the big girls. RuPaul calls her an amazing queen, and ...that's all. This editing is officially no longer even trying to be fair, because while we got sweet, personal moments with Alaska and Jinkx, Roxxxy's Tic Tac Luncheon segment is shorter and much less personal. I've told you everything that we saw. Dear Roxxxy: it sucks that you've painted yourself into this corner, gurl. Good luck on All-Stars.

Back from commercial, and all rise! Order in the courtroom, hunties!

Without much elaboration, Roxxxy describes her witness and prosecutor
as "a bitch," and struggles with all three roles. Honestly, her
frustration is understandable: in past seasons' music videos, all the
queens had to do for this segment was pout and stamp a bit, then get
slapped by RuPaul. By comparison, this is some ten-seconds-on-the-clock
Snatch Game Redux action.

Jinkx's characters are great: I loved the mannerisms of her saucy-dish witness and her Wife of Foghorn Leghorn defense attorney.

Alaska was cute too. I loved all three of her very-distinct voices, her trampy little witness was priceless, and I lived for her "We want the T, schtupid!" interaction with Jinkx.

By the way, you need this GIF in your life: Roxxxy's cloud of spittle, floating across the nonplussed visage of Mathu Andersen.

#Mistography

It's lucky that somebody dropped a Xanax in Mathu's coffee this year, because he was very sweet and diplomatic with the increasingly-frustrated Roxxxy. Watching Roxxxy punch Mathu would've gilded the lily on her edit, right?

All three queens are drained after the long day of filming, and Roxxxy lashes out at Alaska and Jinkx. Listening to her words, it's clear that her frustration is more with the competition challenges themselves than with her competitors, but the only people available for screaming-at are Jinkx and Alaska, so they bear the brunt of her anger.

Roxxxy's not exactly wrong, by the way. There is a rhythm to each season of RuPaul's Drag Race, types of challenges that, when categorized, come up semi-predictably each season. This season, in the challenges between the Snatch Game and the amateur make-overs, there was an extra comedy challenge where, in past years, there's been a costuming challenge instead. And, if we're being honest, this courtroom scene was effectively an entire challenge's worth of comedy by itself. Every season is a little different, though--Season Two had two fewer comedy challenges than the other seasons; Season Three had one extra costuming challenge--and it's Roxxxy's poor luck that Season Five was the comedy-heavy season. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but her frustration with this season isn't coming from a completely unfounded place.

Anyway. She goes to bed angry, we go to commercial, and when we come back, it's the Last Day Ever in the werkroom!

I wish we got an entire Final Morning segment that was just "Look at what I brought but never got to wear!"

Roxxxy is still bitter about the amount of comedy in the competition, implying that Jinkx, Alaska, and RuPaul's Drag Race itself are making fun of drag in a way that demeans the art of drag. Jinkx is the defense counsel, explaining that she takes comedy, and the art of comedy in drag, very seriously. (Fun fact: Jinkx and Alaska both have BFAs in theater. Nobody has a degree in mocking their own profession, thank you very much.) In her confessional, Alaska is the voice of cooler heads prevailing; effectively, her stance is "Oh, that incorrigible pageant queen Roxxxy! What a hoot."

Pictured: the gulf between Roxxxy and Jinkx.

Roxxxy's teeth really come out, though, when Jinkx asks, "What has been your favorite moment throughout this competition?" and Roxxxy replies, "Seeing you in the bottom two." In confessional, she cops to the head game: she's trying to upset Jinkx, and it works. I'd be upset too--anybody would.

When Jinkx replies, "It doesn't make me feel good, to talk to other people the way you talk to me sometimes," Roxxxy can't help herself, laying out the narrative for God and everybody: "I know, you're the victim, everybody hates you and nobody gets you." Jinkx replies strongly, insisting that she's not anybody's victim and reminding Roxxxy that she's done well in the competition. It's absolutely true, for Jerick-the-actual-person, but the producers have been building the narrative of Jinkx-the-bullied-odd-duck all season, and Roxxxy spelling it out iced the cake. (Yes, Roxxxy's been apologizing for this non-stop; if you didn't read it before, the details are in my recap of their Elimination Lunch together.)

And on that note, we say goodbye to the werkroom until 2014. Hey, mama!

Best Breasts on Panel awarded to Michelle Visage. Check out that tacky necklace!

I really should think of an award Santino could potentially win each week. Most Smitten With RuPaul? Anyway, my favorite mooning clownfucker is looking very handsome tonight.

Commence.

Shake.

DOWN.

I refuse to nitpick. All three queens look stunning.

The critiques are, overall, positive. Santino, in particular, gives all three queens the compliments they've wanted to hear all season: Roxxxy exudes sex appeal, Jinkx's paint looks amazing and she moves like she knows she's beautiful, and while Alaska had a lot to live up to, she now stands as her own queen, not in anybody's shadow. Atta boy, Santino.

And now... I'm sorry my dears, but you are up for extermination... because the time has come... for you to defend... your life!

Roxxxy speaks first, and she makes the case that she has a grace, beauty, and professionalism that Jinkx and Alaska lack. She wants to be a role model as a thick and juicy girl, and she's proud of her body and her drag. It's a fine speech, but she's also lucky she went first and didn't have to follow either of the other two.

Jinkx lays out her narrative: she grew up an outcast from a troubled home, and drag helped her come to life on stage. She discusses her growth through the competition, and ends with her "Water off a duck's back" catchphrase. It's touching and, not to be crass, it's expertly crafted: I'm not coming for Jinkx when I say that she knows exactly what she's laying out, and similar speeches have won this competition before.

And then, it's Alaska's turn, and she turns the Star Power Firehouse on full-blast, skipping Roxxxy and Jinkx's conversational tone for a much more dramatic delivery. She reads down Roxxxy and Jinkx for their Sugar Ball mishaps, then hits a rhythm of trash to treasure, tragic to magic, and hunties, do not forget that she's the only one who hasn't been in the Bottom Two.

Alaska Thunderfuck: Sharing Responsibility for the Crown of America's Next Drag Superstar.

The judges deliberate, but we know that at this point, it doesn't matter: nobody is being eliminated, and America is going to choose its winner. The queens come back, and for the first time this season, we're given a glimpse of this year's crown. It gets more gorgeous every year, doesn't it?

Like Season Four, all three queens will perform the final Lip Synch For Your Life.

This is the beginning of the rest of your life.

And then, RuPaul lets us know: get on every social media site you can think of, and let your #TeamJinkx and #TeamAlaska flags fly, because this isn't a vote, it's a cheering contest.

Friends: that's our season! We have the clip show next week (which will include this week's skipped Untucked), and on May 6, we'll have the Finale, a reunion and crowning.

I have some thoughts about this season that I'm brewing for another post, but for now, I'd like to direct your attention to the Bad Hessian blog, where Alex Hanna has been doing fascinating statistical work on RuPaul's Drag Race results. While I've been doing addition on my fingers, Alex (aka Kate Silver, hunties) has applied mathematical rigor to the process, and his most recent post analyzes the Twitter traction the finalists are getting. He's got more analysis coming, and I'm living for what he's put together. Check him out!

Okay, sound off: did this episode change your mind on anybody? Do you think this year's winner is a foregone conclusion, or is there still a race on? Hit me up on Twitter and Facebook, and stay tuned, darlings.

04/12/2013

It's the question we've all been asking, ourselves and each other: Who will win RuPaul's Drag Race season 5? I loved assembling my mid-season analysis post, and the more I examined this season from a statistical-records perspective, the more nuanced the question became.

1. What do past seasons' Top Four records give us?

For my purposes, I took the records for the Top Four of each previous season, as of the conclusion of the Top Four Ball challenge. I made a separate column for explicit wins, then grouped together the combined wins and top-three counts, the combined Safe and low-but-safe counts, and the number of Lip Synchs.

As we've discussed in the past, with the exception of Season 3 (where Raja and Manila finished with identical records), the queen with the most challenge wins has always won their season. It's also interesting to note that the runner-up has always had a better win/high record than the third-place finisher, even though, in every season except Season 2, the second and third place finishers had the same number of challenge wins. Finally, it's also potentially-telling to note that the fourth place finisher nearly always has the weakest record of the group, either in wins or wins/highs, if not both.

So, what does that mean for Alaska, Detox, Jinkx, and Roxxxy?

2. The next challenge is very, very important for Jinkx and Roxxxy.

Jinkx and Roxxxy are neck-and-neck at two wins each. At this point, Roxxxy will not be able to catch Jinkx in wins/highs, but that's not necessarily a deal-breaker: BeBe had a weaker win/high record against Nina, and had a lip synch where Nina didn't, and still won the crown. Their overall records are actually very close, and either of them winning the next challenge has the power to establish clear dominance.

Here's another interesting fact: look at the total wins for Top Four in the last two seasons, which had a similar number of challenges to this season. If you total the challenge wins for the Top Four, compared to the number of challenges in the season, it shakes out this way:

Season 3: 10/12 (83%)Season 4: 10/11 (91%)Season 5: 7/11 (64%)

In other words, this season's Top Four have fewer challenge wins among them total, which potentially makes this final challenge the most decisive Top Four episode we've ever had.

3. The next challenge is also very, very important for Alaska and Detox.

Simply put: unless one of them wins the next challenge, neither of them realistically has a shot to win the crown. If Alaska wins the next challenge, and Roxxxy does poorly, Alaska would surpass Roxxxy's record, putting her right at Jinkx's heels. Detox's slope is steeper, with few wins/highs compared to the other queens, but this challenge win would put her at two wins, same as Jinkx and Roxxxy, and solidify her legitimacy in the Top Three.

4. Could Roxxxy Andrews be America's Next Drag Superstar?

Yes. As a winner, Roxxxy is an answer to a critique often lobbed at RuPaul's Drag Race: the show doesn't cast enough bigger girls, and that the thick girls they do cast often don't represent well. Roxxxy's peanut buttery crown would be a final response to that complaint. This was also sold as the year that RuPaul's Drag Race would bring in the best of the pageant circuit, and with Alyssa and Coco gone, Roxxxy is the lone pageant queen remaining. Compared to the model-thin, artistic-conceptual queens who won Seasons 3 and 4, Roxxxy is a very different choice for the crown, and a wholly legitimate one.

And aside from the demographic bullet-points she hits, Roxxxy has done very well in this competition. If she wins the Top Four challenge, she is absolutely a contender for the crown. (Frankly, as long as Jinkx doesn't win the Top Four challenge, she's a contender.)

The only elephant in the room? For the most part, fans of RuPaul's Drag Race aren't rallying behind Roxxxy. I would hate to see it happen, but she could potentially face ugly backlash from the fanbase if she's crowned, like Tyra Sanchez faced (even though Tyra had the clear winning record of her season). Which leads us to the next question...

5. Could Jinkx Monsoon be America's Next Drag Superstar?

Yes. In two words? Fan Favorite. Like Sharon last year, the internet has fallen in love with Miss Monsoon, and if RuPaul calls for a vote, Jinkx can start spending her $100,000 now. She's been touring like a madwoman, selling out every venue she hits, and her star power, both on-screen and on-stage, has frankly already made her America's next drag superstar, even with no crown on her head. All that, plus: she currently has the winningest record, and her eight-week success streak has set a new all-time record for consecutive highs/wins.

If she wins the Top Four challenge, I would bet my life on her winning the season. If she flounders, especially if she flounders while Roxxxy wins the challenge, it becomes less clear-cut.

6. Could Alaska be America's Next Drag Superstar?

Maybe. She absolutely must win the Top Four challenge to have a chance, and even that only puts her on equal footing with Jinkx and Roxxxy. Her chances are certainly improved if either Jinkx or Roxxxy is eliminated; a Top Three with a two-win Alaska, Detox, and either of the other two is suddenly anybody's game.

And if that happens, her relationship with Sharon could very well become an asset, because Sharon has worked her tail off for RuPaul's Drag Race this past year.

What I'm about to say is crass, and very presumptuous, but here's how it is: this past year has shown us a very tailored side of Sharon Needles. She's been playing along with RuPaul's Drag Race like a champ, shilling vodka, touring non-stop, and releasing an album with a title that says, "I could be way less family-friendly." On the other hand, she's also been giving more ambivalent interviews like this:

Sharon: You start off loving to do it, but there is a point where you feel like you have to do it.Interviewer: Will you always have to be Sharon, from time to time?Sharon: Of course. I don't know how to do anything else. I know how to make coffee, but I like the life that I live now. But at the same time, a lot of other people rely on you to do what you do.Interviewer: Where does Sharon draw the line, in terms of going too far?Sharon: She doesn't know yet. I used this year, I created a concept for me which was, "Success comes from compromise." And I've watched people not be successful because they decided not to compromise.

Logo, World of Wonder, and Sharon have had each other by the leash of Alaska since Season Five was cast: Sharon has done everything she can to be a good, bankable Next Drag Superstar for the network, surely in part because Alaska is still in the running for the crown, but on the other hand, Sharon Needles doesn't need RuPaul's Drag Race to drive her success anymore. If Alaska wins, Logo keeps its Power Couple of Drag for another year. If Alaska doesn't win, Logo could potentially lose the franchise power of them both.

Or maybe they both genuinely enjoy working for Logo, and my crass presumptions are completely off-base! Time will surely tell.

7. Could Detox be America's Next Drag Superstar?

Probably not. She'll be remembered as one of the best of Season Five, but her ratio of wins/highs to safe/lows has knocked her out of the running to be called the best of Season Five. Unless Roxxxy's outfit melts off and Jinkx throws a shoe at Michelle at the next runway judging, Detox will probably finish third or fourth.

8. By the way, who's winning Miss Congeniality?

I'd said Jinkx earlier in the season, but I'm changing my tune: her dominance in the competition has won her a lion's share of fans, but with so many people certain that she's going to win the crown, she's less likely to garner Miss Congeniality votes. Instead, I think the frontrunners are likely to be Alaska, Ivy, Detox, and Alyssa.

I'll be voting for Alaska. She's earned special recognition for the way she's given her life to this show: we've been watching her audition tapes since Season One, and frankly, she's the Miss Congeniality of Seasons 4 and 5. She's been more dedicated to this show, and for longer, than any other queen this season. To be blunt, she's probably not winning America's Next Drag Superstar this year, but I don't want to see her walk away empty-handed.

And she's a sweetheart, and that counts.

Finally: Who is the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5?

Like I said, this race has become very tight, and a lot rides on the final challenge. I'm calling this now: If Jinkx, Alaska, or Detox wins the Top Four Ball challenge, Jinkx Monsoon will win RuPaul's Drag Race. If Roxxxy wins the Top Four Ball challenge, I'm not commiting to a prediction--it could genuinely go either way.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments below! Also, if you want to keep up with me, let's hook up on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned, darlings!

03/05/2013

We started this year with fourteen queens, and now we're down to seven.
As I tipsily tweeted last night: this is the beginning of the rest of
your season.

Since we're at the halfway point, I wanted to look
back at past seasons' records and see what, if anything, we can infer
from them, and what they might tell us about what's to come this season. (Translation: shit's about to get real data-crunchy, then turn maudlin at the end. It's how I roll.)

This
is a spoiler-free post, save the results of this season thusfar
(including last night's elimination). Just analysis and speculation
here!

To start, let's look at the records for Seasons 2 - 5. (I love and
respect Season 1, but it's not very useful for comparison: it featured a
third fewer queens and episodes, and it hadn't yet adopted the
season-spanning ordering and rhythm of challenges we expect to see now.
It featured a total of seven competition episodes, and on Season Five,
our seventh competition episode is next week.)

These are all sourced from the Wikipedia pages for the individual seasons. You can click the images to see them at full size.

Season Two:

Season Three:

Season Four:

Season Five:

First, what can we say about the past seasons' winners?

1. The queen who wins the most challenges wins the season.

This isn't a hard-and-fast rule: ultimately, RuPaul is going to choose who RuPaul chooses. It holds, though: yes, Raja and Manila tied for number of challenges won, but BeBe, Tyra, and Sharon all won the most challenges in their seasons.

This season, nobody has yet won two challenges, making it anybody's game. That also makes this season unique: it's never taken this long for a queen to win two challenges. Sharon and Alexis did it by the third competition episode, and Tyra did it by Episode 5. Of the remaining queens, only Coco and Alaska haven't yet won a challenge; everybody else has one win.

2. No team captain has ever won her season.

Here's a nugget of trivia: BeBe, Tyra, Raja, and Sharon were never team captains. While being a team captain isn't directly damning to your chances of winning, RuPaul's Drag Race has a terrifying sashay rate for its captains.

Here's the mathetmatical T: in Seasons 1 - 4, the overall random-statistical chance of any one queen being in the bottom two during any given team challenge was 19%, and the statistical chance of any one queen being eliminated was 9.5%. However, if you look at the numbers for captains, the statistical likelihood of a captain being in the bottom two of a team challenge rises from 19% to 26.3%, and the likelihood of a captain sashaying rises from 9.5% to 15.8%. (If anybody's interested in how I arrived at those numbers, let me know in the comments and I'll reply with my methodology. You can trust me on this, though.)

Or, to look at it another way, and include this season: Through Seasons 1 - 5, there have been a total of twelve team challenges. In four of them, a captain sashayed. One third of all team challenges have resulted in a captain's elimination.

Like I said: being a captain doesn't inherently hurt your chances of winning, but captaining a team isn't statistically favorable to your chances of surviving the challenge, either. Now that we're past the Snatch Game, team challenges have concluded. Of the remaining Season Five queens, only Roxxxy never served as a captain.

3. The last two seasons, the winner of the first challenge won the season.

This is more coincidence than indicator, but it's true: Raja and Sharon were both swinging hard out of the gate, and while Morgan won the first challenge of Season 2, Tyra was a high-scorer too.

(Editor's note-to-self: "Swinging hard out of the gate?" Oh so now we're mixing baseball metaphors and race-horse metaphors in the same phrase? I guess this is why I cover drag, not sports.)

Of course, we know that Roxxxy won the first challenge of Season Five.

Now that we've looked specifically at commonalities among the winners, what else can we glean from past seasons' records?

4. Unless you're gunning for Top Three, nobody survives their third Lip Synch.

Nobody. While many excellent queens have survived two LSFYLs (Raven, Sahara, Shangela, Delta, Jiggly, Milan), each of those queens was eliminated on her third lip synch. The only two queens to survive their third lip synchs were Jujubee and Alexis, both while moving from Top Four to Top Three.

Of the remaining Season Five queens, only Coco has already survived two lip synchs, putting her in this danger zone. Detox has survived one, and none of the other queens have lip synched yet.

5. The returning Top Five queen probably hasn't been eliminated yet.

This is more of a hunch than anything else. It's hard to compare Carmen's and Kenya's records and find predictive trends: neither of them ever won a challenge, and both of them were initially eliminated before their third lip synch, but that's true of many queens who weren't called back. Carmen bypassed one episode; Kenya bypassed four. It's a tough call.

The "second Top Five" episode, which is the "put a random dude in drag" challenge, will be Episode 10 this year. Jade's elimination was Episode 6. Right now, looking at the win/high/in/low records of the remaining Season Five queens, the clear statistical frontrunners are Jinkx, Ivy, and Roxxxy, with an uncomfortable number of safe/low rankings from the rest of the pack. If any of these three are eliminated in the next couple episodes, I'd bet my hat they come back on April 8. If it's not one of those three, though, your guess is as good as mine--maybe Jade? Maybe Lineysha?

6. So, who's winning Season Five?

I'm laying down my prediction now: from the win/high/safe/low records, from the edits they're getting, and from my gut, I think we're looking at a Top Two showdown between Jinkx and Roxxxy. Among the others--Alyssa, Alaska, Coco, Detox, and Ivy--I don't have a good guess for Top Three, or even Top Four. The upcoming challenges will find unexpected ways to stymie the queens, and in particular, the Top Four Ball Challenge has always pushed the queens' mettle to the breaking point.

(If I was going to hand-pick my favorites for the top three at this moment, mine would be Jinkx, Ivy, and Alaska. That said, I don't think my personal preference has much influence over RuPaul's decisions, let alone the results of challenges filmed more than half a year ago.)

Unless she makes a unexpected turn to jackassery in the next few episodes, I think Jinkx will win Miss Congeniality. Her fan support online is massive, and she's getting an extremely sympathetic edit. This assumes, naturally, that the other queens' behavior and stories hold their course--it's entirely possible (and even likely) that another queen will have an episode that results in a surge of love from the fanbase.

So here we go again: RuPaul's Drag Race season five, Chapter Two. The next couple months are the main event.

The second half of this season is when we'll get to deeply know and love
the final competitors. We're going to watch these seven queens develop lifetime
friendships with each other, as well as fanbases that will follow them
through their entire careers. As RuPaul herself said: I can't wait to see how this turns out.

I want to hear what you think! Leave a comment below and let me know your predictions, and follow me on Twitter and we'll talk about what's coming up. (The only request I have: I'm trying hard to avoid actual
spoilers, the kind that come from queens' drag moms and loose-lipped
cameramen. If you actually know what's going to happen, please don't
tell me.) *thumbs up!*

Coming tomorrow: a deliciously GIFfy recap of "Can I Get an Amen?" Plus, I have prizes to give away to readers! Stay tuned, darlings.

03/02/2013

I can't believe I missed this: there were Top Five spoilers built into the first moments of RuPaullywood or Bust! Plus, screenshots leading to speculation on a future runway challenge, because girl, your wigs don't match.

01/18/2013

Today, Logo released the first two minutes of Episode 1, calling it the "Season 5 Supertease." As in past seasons, they showed a quick-flash series of previews for upcoming challenges... the most revealing of which appears to be the Top Eight.

From this, I believe I've determined the first three queens to go home, and the second three queens to go home after that. Follow the jump for spoilers!